16 Sulak Sivaraksa Spiritual Friendship in Buddhist Activism
ON THE COVER FLAP OF HIS BOOK GLOBAL HEALING: Essays on Structural Violence, Social Development and Spiritual Transformation,
Sulak Sivaraksa is standing with a group of supporters, his arms outstretched, his face firm and concentrated. People are bowing to him and taking their turn tying white blessing strings on his wrists to show their respect. Sulak, who won the Right Livelihood Award in 1995, is known and honored across the globe for his bold critiques of consumerism and development! Among socially engaged Buddhists, he is a courageous voice, a critical thinker, and a dedicated advocate for peace and justice. I first met Sulak in 1990 when I traveled to Siam (Sulak's preferred name in historical recognition of his homeland) to represent the Buddhist Peace Fellowship at the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) conference. During our four-day preconference workshop, he was a most cordial and personable host, looking after our needs and helping us feel comfortable in a new place.
At the
opening ceremony for the conference, Sulak explained that the purpose of the
conference was "to make spiritual friends." I had never heard such a
goal mentioned at any other conference I'd attended. Considering the large
number of social, political, economic, and ecological problems facing the
group, I wondered how friendship could possibly be up to the task. Sulak seemed
to be saying that these precious moments together held great practice
opportunities if we took seriously the idea of spiritual friendship. At the
time, I was part of an unfolding conversation on engaged Buddhist practice, but
I had little idea what spiritual friendship might mean. I barely grasped how
important Sulak was to so many activists in Siam and how far his networks of
spiritual friends extended. Across the years, as I have become part of a few of
those networks, I have gained a glimpse of his vast social world and all he has
supported.
Soon
after the INEB conference, Sulak spoke at the University of Hawaii about
spiritual friendship in the context of human rights work. "Human rights
means not only rights for you or rights for me, but human rights for
all."' He urged listeners to understand how we are interrelated, that
"we need friends who will help us, because we alone cannot do it. The
Buddha said that it is most important for each individual to have good
supportive friends. The First World must work with the Third World; the Thai
must work with the Burmese; and so on. . . . We all have our small part to
play."' In a 1998 talk in New Delhi, he returned to this topic while
addressing Buddhist perspectives on sustainable community. "As
'interbeings' we need good friends—kalayanamittas—because we cannot
exist alone. . . . From others one can learn to develop oneself and help
society to be peaceful and just.994 He used the example of
Sekhi-yadhama, the group of Thai activist monks who apply Buddhist teachings to
modern challenges of forest clearing, chemical agriculture, and Westernization.'
Kalayanamitta, spiritual friendship, is very important to these monks as
they confront criticism from the Thai government and Buddhist religious
establishment. They build their friendships by drawing on each other's
experience, insight, and activist strategies. Through INEB conferences and
other networks, they gain support from other Buddhist friends around the world,
following Sulak's teachings.
In 2003, one of Sulak's close spiritual friends, David Chappell, invited friends and colleagues to contribute to a collection of essays in honor of Sulak's seventieth birthday.6
The opening page quote from the Dhammapada seems
to describe Sulak himself:
Regard
him as one who points out treasure, The wise one who rebukes you.
Stay
with this sort of sage.
For the
one who stays with a sage of this sort,
Things get better, not worse. (verse 76)
I recognized many of the names in the volume—people
from the INEB conference, people from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, people
I'd met from Buddhist-Christian Dialogue circles. But there were more— so many
names from around the world and so many realms of spiritual friendship. In one
tribute, Sulak said to a colleague, "Friends, you see, are very important.
In Buddhism the best thing for each of us is not fame, not money, but friends.
And the Buddha said good friends are the best help for you to have externally.
Internally it's critical self-awareness. Externally it's good friends, kalyanamitta."7
Sulak referred to the famous story where Ananda, one of the Buddha's students,
remarked that it seemed to him that having good friends was half of the holy
life. "Not so," the Buddha replied. "Having friends is the whole
of spiritual life."
For
Sulak, spiritual friendship is valuable in two fundamental ways. Spiritual
friends are essential for their role as critics, the ones who will tell us
where we fall short. At the same time, spiritual friends are important sources
of mutual inspiration. In Sulak's Buddhist worldview, "kalyanamittas, or
virtuous companions, are crucial to spiritual growth. Friends are the only
people who can give us the criticism and the support that we need to transcend
our own limitations and can comfort us if we fail. If we become so
self-absorbed that we do not have kalyana-mittas in our lives, we
stagnate in complacency and self-righteousness."' Sulak believes that only
with the help of spiritual friends can we develop a peaceful society. He feels
sure that addressing the challenges of social stability and global peace have
much greater odds if we are supported by spiritual friends.
What do Buddhist texts say about spiritual friendship?
The Flower Ornament Sutra explains the purpose for seeking spiritual friends. "It is from spiritual friends that bodhisattvas learn the practice of bodhi-sattvas; it is through spiritual friends that all bodhisattvas' virtues are perfected; spiritual friends are the source of the stream of all bodhi-sattva vows; the roots of goodness of all bodhisattvas are produced by spiritual friends;, the provisions for enlightenment are produced by spiritual friends."9 Here the Buddha is encouraging his followers to develop spiritual friendships as an aid to enlightenment and service to others. Further on in the sutra he speaks to the great powers of spiritual friends:
Think of yourself as sick, and think of spiritual
friends as physicians; think of their instructions as medicines, and think of
the practices as getting rid of disease. Think of yourself as a traveler, and
think of spiritual friends as guides; think of their instructions as the road,
and think of the practices as going to the land of your destination. Think of
yourself as crossing to the other shore, and think of the spiritual friend as a
boatman; think of the instruction as a ford, and think of the practices as a
boat. Think of yourself as a farmeq and think of spiritual friends as water
spirits; think of the instructions as rain, and think of the practices as the
ripening of the crops. Think of yourself as a pauper, and think of spiritual
friends as the givers of wealth; think of their instructions as wealth, and
think of the practices as getting rid of poverty. Think of yourself as an
apprentice, and think of spiritual friends as mentors; think of their
instructions as arts, and think of the practices as accomplishments. Think of
yourself as fearless, and think of spiritual friends as heroic warriors; think
of their instructions as attack, and think of the practices as vanquishing
enemies. 10
The
twelfth-century Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist text by Gampopa, An Ornament of
Precious Liberation, describes four types of spiritual friends. The type of
spiritual friend one takes as a wisdom teacher depends on the student's level
of development. For a bodhisattva in the most advanced stages, the appropriate
wisdom teacher is a sambhogakaya form of the Buddha. At the next lower
stage, the appropriate spiritual friend is a nirmanakaya form of the
Buddha. Most people fall into the "beginner" category, unable to
recognize a highly awakened being. Thus, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, a
nineteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist master, suggests a beginner should take a
wisdom teacher who has the form of an ordinary person.11 In this
commentary on Gampopa's text, "ordinary person" is understood to mean
someone who knows something about Mahayana Buddhism and has taken the
bodhisattva vow. "Ordinary person" implies someone who is on the
path but trying to make an effort, just like everyone else. This certainly
describes Sulak Sivaraksa as he has inspired me. Always he is asking, "How
can we water seeds of peace in ourselves? How can we transform
society?""
Buddhist
writer Stephen Batchelor makes the case for spiritual friendship as a practice
field for acting from true understanding of relationality.
Self-absorbed
concern generating from the Three Poisons—greed, hate, and delusion—inevitably
blocks authentic relations. We are distracted by projections and assumptions
about others that mislead and confuse us. Batchelor suggests that a more
meaningful pattern of relationship requires "sustained contemplation of
the equality of self and other." 13 Meditating on this point, we see we
are completely entwined with others, that this defines who we actually are.
Self-concern is a false distortion of reality to be actively taken apart and
replaced with concern for others. Realizing that our existence is fundamentally
"being-with-others," we transform this insight through
compassion to "being-for-others." 14 Spiritual friends,
then, act as wisdom teachers by practicing deeply
"being-with-others," in whatever form that may take, including
activist work.
In
considering the importance of spiritual friendship for Sulak, it seems to me
that this was a radical concept, a fresh idea in the Buddha's time and one that
is still fresh now. Spiritual friendships strengthened the monastic community
by reinforcing practice commitment across many relationships, not just between
teacher and student. This mitigated the concentration of power in a
priest/teacher class and, in contrast to the ascendant Brahmanism of the time,
supported a radical equality among practitioners. By drawing on each other's
experience, spiritual friends examined the Buddha's suggestions in real-life
settings, testing their merits for themselves. Spiritual friends could turn to
each other, finding wisdom in "ordinary persons," free from competing
for the teacher's attention.
Given
this understanding, it is no surprise that Sulak placed so much attention on
cultivating friendships at the INEB gathering. He clearly sees spiritual
friendship as key to spiritually based activism. Spiritual activist friends
can lean on each other to share their learning and strengthen their knowledge base.
Together, they can support a path of practice in the midst of activist work
through ritual, meditation, and ethical reflection. Understanding themselves as
"interbeings" in the great causal net, they can take up the work of
promoting peace and nonharming. In a world where there are more problems than
priests, cultivating spiritual friendships increases the activist presence
where there is suffering.
Sulak
himself has been a great model for spiritual friendship in activist work with
his support for religious engagement with non-Buddhist. traditions.
In his book Conflict, Culture, Change: Engaged Buddhism in a Globalizing World,
he describes his close friendships with Quakers as a "constant source
of inspiration and support in my life and my work as an engaged Buddhist. . .
especially their honesty, simplicity; and commitment to
nonviolence."" I saw firsthand in academic Buddhist-Christian
theological encounters how moved he was by Christian participants whose
religious faith was so intertwined with their commitment to social justice.
Sulak was especially inspired by liberation theologians of South and Central
America and their passionate commitment to the needs of the poor and oppressed.
Across
his lifetime of activism, Sulak built friendships with Burmese refugees fleeing
the border, with drug users, AIDS patients, advocates against sex trafficking,
and forest monks protecting trees. During a critical period in Thai history,
when Sulak challenged the government and was charged with lèse-majesté (insulting
the king), he was forced into exile. In his book Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist
Vision for Renewing Society (1992), he wrote, "In times of crisis like
this, when I have to be away from home, I experience so much kindness and
attention from everyone I come across. To all these friends who have been so
kind to me and my family during my sojourn abroad, I wish to express sincere
gratitude." 16
Nicholas
Bennett, coeditor of another of Sulak's books, testified that Sulak
"helped many young people take their first steps toward a spiritually
based social activism, and continues to provide them with moral support as
they branch off in their own directions. There is hardly a [Thai]
non-governmental organization that does not have someone on its staff whom
Sulak has helped."" This includes, among others, the Thai
Inter-Religious Commission for Development, the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute,
the Asian Cultural Forum on Development, the International Network of Engaged
Buddhists, the Spirit in Education Movement, and many other manifestations of
spiritual friendship in action." Sulak takes very seriously the importance
of paying public tribute to spiritual friends and mentors who have meant so
much to him—Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Bhikkhu Payutto, and
Puey Ungphakorn, among others.'9
As I write this reflection, again and again I find myself
bowing to Ajahn Sulak in gratitude for the gift of this teaching. The kind of
bow I'm speaking of is not deferential or subservient, but rather, as Chogyam
Trungpa Rinpoche says, "a complementary exchange of energy" that
confirms both people.2° A bow acknowledges worth of the other as
well as the self. In the act of bowing you share some understanding that you
are joined together in serving others. So I offer my grateful thanks for this
particular spiritual friend, Sulak Sivaraksa, respected elder, colleague in
green Buddhist dialogue and action. May we continue to carry on this work
together, side by side, though we are thousands of miles apart.
